Maneuvers with You - a McRoll in the REAL World story
by Mari217
Summary: A conversation with work friends leads to an amusing conclusion that Catherine shares with Steve.


_Sammy & Ilna, Love you both. Thanks for being the best of everything :)_

 _Also, thanks Sammy for the titles and job descriptions in this one._

 _REALMcRollers & Readers sending you love & hugs!_

* * *

 _ **Maneuvers with You**_

Catherine ended her call and tucked the phone in her pocket. "Sorry, just checking that Steve's going to make it home on time." She held up crossed fingers to indicate that of course a case could blow 'on time' out of the water, but she was hoping.

"First full week back after the holiday recess …" Eva Morgan, the head of legal affairs, sighed. "It was a short week last week and it seemed like five twelve hour days."

Shavon, who was in her mid forties with a pre teen son and daughter and head of Lea's public relations team, laughed good naturedly. "You surfed most of the time off. This girl…" she indicated herself, "Is soooo happy the kids are back in school there are literally no words. Every teacher on the planet is underpaid. Period." She held up a hand. "I mean, I love my kids. I absolutely do and they're great, but a full two weeks of them hanging around the house saying, A: 'Mooooooom there's nothing to do,' B: 'Ma, she's bothering me!' or the ever popular, 'Why can't I have extra device time on vacation?' makes coming to work a mini vacation."

The women laughed and sat at a table for four.

"So, I saw Miss Angie in two new outfits last week." Shavon continued before she bit into her sandwich. "Your mom had a fun Christmas," she said from experience. "After the first year we just stopped trying to control the grandma train. We just dove off the tracks so it didn't run us over," she chuckled. "Actually, we limited them as best we could, but we picked our battles."

Catherine smiled. "Steve and I try our best. My folks are rivaled by Danny, though so …" she shrugged and sipped her iced tea. "Nothing too outrageous so far, but he was busting Steve about a pony before Christmas."

Eva's phone dinged a text and she excused herself to glance at it. From her instant smile both the others assumed it was from her fiance, Patrick.

"We got the honeymoon confirmation!" She held up the screen. "We're doing a week on a barefoot cruise. We rent the boat and the captain sails and stops wherever we'd like." Her eyes were sparkling.

"That sounds amazing." Catherine nodded, happy the trip Eva had been planning was confirmed. "Steve would love that, but …" a tiny grin graced her features. "He'd want to do the sailing ourselves."

"Nice way to spend time alone with zero interruptions," the experienced mom of the group said. "We're lucky if we get a weekend completely alone twice a year." She looked at Catherine. "Angie's still little enough that you don't have to sneak around your house to have…" she lowered her voice and glanced around the nearly empty section of the cafeteria. "Alone time." Grinning at Eva's look, she raised her brows. "Wait … you'll see. You end up hiding in the bathroom or going out to the car in the garage after they're asleep." She snorted a laugh. "Sometimes we make appointments."

"Seriously?" The youngest of the women looked surprised.

"Seriously. Otherwise stuff gets in the way. Daily life, stupid stuff, and you look back and think, damn it's been a week. You aren't a parent until you've met in a hall closet or someplace to be alone."

"Room for one more?" Iris, the governor's director of legislative affairs, took a seat when the group motioned her in. "I haven't' had a chance to eat since last night." She placed a tray holding a burger and sweet potato fries down and took a huge bite. "Mmmm." Looking around after a sip of Coke, she smiled. "I heard the end of that. You're gonna scare the bride to be." She patted the thirty year old's hand. "Most people do taper off. It's natural. I have friends who ended up best friends and roommates after fifteen years. They're both fine with that, I guess, so it is what it is." She shrugged.

"Does sex get … boring? I mean with the same person for like 25 years? I mean I love Patrick and we have a good sex life but, I can't say I haven't thought about that."

"For most people, you slow down. Then the kids come. You need to keep talking. Otherwise if it's not as good for whatever reason and no one says anything you get to where you just go through the motions. You're busy. You're tired. You stop making time." Iris shrugged. "Sometimes you wake up and you're divorced and 43, like me. If I ever get remarried, I'd learn from that. Talk. Make time." She smiled. Not unhappily at all - just matter of factly. "But I can only speak for myself."

Eva looked at the others. "Did things get … worse after getting married and having kids?"

"Not worse, not like you're thinking, we were mismatched from the start," Iris said.

Shavon shook her head. Definitely not worse. Don't think of it like that. Just less often. Less adventurous, maybe. Especially when the kids are really little. But no less … loving. Oh that sounded sappy. Hey, Catherine's the one with the toddler." She grinned and ate one of Iris' fries. "But somehow I'm thinking she and Steve are not the ones you wanna set your standards by.

Your love life with that ridiculously good lookin' husband of yours didn't suffer even a little bit after Miss Angie came along did it?" Shavon was always funny and outspoken. "C'mon, give the bride to be here some hope." She winked.

As Catherine sipped her drink she smiled around the straw and shrugged. "Nope." She'd realized she and Steve were outliers long ago. "It actually got better."

"Damn, I knew it. Good for you. Hell, good for him." Shavon laughed.

"We may be hiding in closets pretty soon though," Catherine said with a laugh at Shavon's description. "I have a feeling my daughter's gonna be pretty adept at locating anything or anyone she wants."

* * *

When she was recounting the conversation later after dinner, Steve raised his water bottle in a salute before leaning over to kiss her. "Definitely even better," he said with a grin against her lips mere seconds before diving sideways to catch Angie.

She'd tripped while running across the playroom and his quick reflexes prevented a fall by catching her in mid air.

Kissing her head before setting her on her feet, he shared a look with Catherine. Angie hadn't missed a beat and just kept on her path to pick up her stacking blocks.

Moving in to resume their interrupted kiss, Catherine's laugh filled the room at the sound of their daughter's voice.

"Dada, see!" She held as many blocks as her little arms could hold and toddled around Cammie to place them between her parents. "See, Mama!"

"We see, sweetheart." She ran a hand over their daughter's hair. "A few more minutes and story time," she noted. Even if Angie didn't understand yet, they always told her when her bedtime routine was about to begin. Catching Steve's eyes, she smiled and added, "I'll run Cammie while you tuck her in?"

"Thirty minutes. Meet you upstairs?" His grin matched hers.

"Up tairzz," their daughter murmured from where she'd settled in his lap, inspiring proud smiles from both parents.

"So brilliant." Steve said as he stood with a drowsy Angie and Catherine rose, too. "Let's go, baby girl, story time."

"Well oiled machine. That's why we keep getting better. We execute a mean plan, Commander."

"Absolutely, and I've got a feeling you were right as usual."

Her head tilted in question after she kissed Angie and murmured she an Cammie would be up to say goodnight. "Right about what?"

"She's already so brilliant, I'm thinking our plans are gonna include _maneuvers_ in the closet pretty soon."

"Closet maneuvers, hmm?"

"Sounds like fun, actually." His grin matched hers.

Her smile turned saucy. "Maneuvers with you always are."

 _# End. Thanks for reading!_

* * *

 _Find all our stories (in chronological order!) on our website:_ _ **marirealmcroll dot wixsite dot com backslash real-mcroll**_

 _Or in the McRoll in the REAL World community here on fanfiction dot net_ _ **Find us on Tumblr: mcrollintherealworld dot tumblr dot com**_

 _You can join our mailing list by_ _ **emailing us realmcroll at yahoo dot com**_ _with: Add me, please! in the subject line. Or just drop us a line to say hi! We love hearing from our readers._

 _And find me on Twitter asking your opinions on all things McRoll in the REAL World! at Mari21763 and add #REALMcRoller_


End file.
